In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to sup

Question

In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to support employees who have grievances or who feel that they are being treated unfairly. Companies often hire an ombuds as a means to greater employee satisfaction. In Mountain County, all the companies that have had an ombuds for over a year have high ratings for employee satisfaction. The Eurystheus Company in Mountain County has had much lower ratings for employee satisfaction over the last five years. The CEO of Eurystheus Company has just hired an ombuds and anticipates a sharp rise in employee satisfaction ratings there.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in order to evaluate the plan described?

A. Whether CEO of Eurystheus Company plans to implement any of the recommendations of this ombuds.
B. Whether the employees of Eurystheus Company are residents of Mountain County.
C. Whether the ombuds hired has experience in other companies of Eurystheus Company’s size.
D. Whether the CEO of Eurystheus Company is aware of the typical grievance of his employees.
E. Whether some of the companies in Mountain County that now have an ombuds had significantly lower employee satisfaction ratings before they hired these ombuds.

NinetyFour · Accepted Answer

I am very doubtful A is the correct answer. E makes much more sense.

No where in the passage does it say a CEO needs to listen to an ombud for employee satisfaction to increase. Ombuds are there to support employees who have grievances or who feel that they are being treated unfairly. They are NOT there to pass recommendations to the CEO.

E on the other hand makes much more sense. If most companies had already had high employee satisfaction rating, ombuds probably did not have much to do with the increase in ratings. If companies did not have high ratings, ombuds probably had something to do with it.

Correct answer IMO is E

pineapple123456 · Answer

I did pick the correct answer - A....I was going for C and I'm not entirely convinced why A is better.

Thanks in advance.

Sivaji reddy · Answer

A . Negate it for making it more clear. He doesn't plan to implement any of the recommendations. So whatever the ombud suggests the CEO wont implement and employees wont be satisfied.

Posted from my mobile device

SaladQueen · Answer

I agree with you. Correlation does not mean causation. It might not be Ombuds that increase employee satisfaction, but simply companies that focus more on employee satisfaction have a higher probability of hiring a Ombud. Choice E confirms this and as a result, CEO of that company should not expect a sharp increase in employee satisfaction.

AshutoshB · Answer

A. Whether CEO of Eurystheus Company plans to implement any of the recommendations of this ombuds.

IMHO this wud be the right answer: let's see how is it, in the first line of the stimulus, they said the role of the Ombuds is to support the grievance of the employee, so in order to support the CEO must listen to the recommendation of Ombuds and Implement them if not, then there is no purpose of having Ombuds

B. Whether the employees of Eurystheus Company are residents of Mountain County.  IRRELEVANT

C. Whether the ombuds hired has experience in other companies of Eurystheus Company’s size.  IRRELEVANT

D. Whether the CEO of Eurystheus Company is aware of the  typical  grievance of his employees.   Typical

E. some of the companies in Mountain County that now have an ombuds had significantly lower employee satisfaction ratings before they hired these ombuds.   It doesn't matter whether they have a lower satisfaction rate earlier

Timebomb · Answer

Supporting the Grevianve in no way implies that Greviances are taken care of.

May be , it's just more of an emotional support that people relate to. If A, is right then D is definitely right , if CEO is aware of Grevianve and not doing anything then why does he need an ombudsman? E on the other hand proves that plan has worked with other companies so there is a likelihood that plan would work.

Posted from my mobile device

ShankSouljaBoi · Answer

Got played on by words here. Worried and not convinced by OA on this one. Gladiator59 , do let me know your thoughts.

Reasons for chosing E---> Significantly lower ---> sharp increase in ratings is justified.
not significantly lower ----> this means increase wont be that sharp, maybe just a marginal improvement---> therefore this weakens the conclusion as the increase wont be that sharp.

Although A was in my final two, i did not choose it.

Reasons for rejecting A ---> This is a future event and therefore not relevant to our conclusion. For example, even if the CEO does not implement new policies per the recommendation of the OMBUDS, maybe OMBUDS by itself has certain mantras or HR gurus to mentally uplift the employees and subsequently improving the satisfaction levels.

Funny how no one above got stuck in keywords. Maybe I am on the wrong track

Fk

Gladiator59 · Answer

Hi ShankSouljaBoi , Happy to help.

I think one place where you went wrong is you did not pay heed to the fact that this is an "Evaluate the plan" question-type and hence we are not worried about either strengthening or weakening the conclusion. (If there is one in the argument!) Let us break down the argument: It has five sentences. 1.In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to support employees who have grievances or who feel that they are being treated unfairly. (Background information - just setting up the scene) 2. Companies often hire an ombuds as a means to greater employee satisfaction (Again more information about ombuds and still background) . 3. In Mountain County, all the companies that have had an ombuds for over a year have high ratings for employee satisfaction. -(Okay - there is a correlation between having an ombuds and having a high rating of employee satisfaction - still gaps to fill) 4. The Eurystheus Company in Mountain County (Now finally we are going to a specific example) has had much lower ratings for employee satisfaction over the last five years. ( this also reveals that Eurystheus company does not have an ombuds, as we know: all company wtih ombuds -> high rating, therefore, !high rating -> !ombuds ) 5. The CEO of Eurystheus Company has just hired an ombuds and anticipates a sharp rise in employee satisfaction ratings there. This is the plan that we need to evaluate. In evaluating a plan we need to look for an option that answers some questions which lead to a two-way street for the outcome of the plan . If the question has an affirmative answer -a definite boost is achieved in the outcome of the plan and if the question has a negative answer then the plan is affected negatively. Only Option (A) fits the bill. If CEO is not going to listen to the ombuds then definitely the plan will not succeed and if CEO listens to the ombuds the plan may or may not succeed ( there are other gaps as we first pointed out) Option (E) gives us information about such a plan's success elsewhere but we cannot link it directly to our company as there could be other factors. Also, there is a possibility that those companies already had a high satisfaction rating and that rating became even higher after the ombuds was hired. So (E) is definitely out. This is a classic Evaluate plan. One has to ensure that the correct option must link back to the outcome of the plan in a tangible way. One cannot answer this question with a mindset similar to a "Strengthen the argument" question-type. Hope this is helpful.

sirrags · Answer

I picked E because it seemed a perfect fit at first glance. But when I reread the language it makes sense why it should be eliminated.

Use of “some” implies that these  few  companies who oversaw an increase after bringing in a ombuds could be because of entirely unrelated reasons.

Posted from my mobile device

nightblade354 · Answer

In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to support employees who have grievances or who feel that they are being treated unfairly. Companies often hire an ombuds as a means to greater employee satisfaction. In Mountain County, all the companies that have had an ombuds for over a year have high ratings for employee satisfaction. The Eurystheus Company in Mountain County has had much lower ratings for employee satisfaction over the last five years. The CEO of Eurystheus Company has just hired an ombuds and anticipates a sharp rise in employee satisfaction ratings there.

P: In Mountain County, all the companies that have had an ombuds for over a year have high ratings for employee satisfaction
P: Eurystheus Company in Mountain County has had much lower ratings for employee satisfaction over the last five years
C: CEO of Eurystheus Company has just hired an ombuds and anticipates a sharp rise in employee satisfaction ratings there

We are in an area where if you hire someone, it helps moral. Our company is in need of help due to low moral. Therefore, we hope low moral will go up. Well, this is a pretty good argument. If every single company has seen results, it is logical to believe you will too. The assumptions being made are suttle, and there are a few, so let's see if we can tease one out. For these types of questions, you always want to answer in the extreme (as shown below); if one strengthens and one weakens the argument, you have your answer choice. Most of the time it is a yes/no, but others times we will need a little more nuance.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in order to evaluate the plan described?

A. Whether CEO of Eurystheus Company plans to implement any of the recommendations of this ombuds. --  Recommendations aren't mentioned, and this, in and of itself, is a colossal assumption made. I eliminated this answer, but had to come back to it. On the GMAT, you will never be forced to make an assumption that builds this bridge. Here, we are assuming other companies took the advice and that the physical presence of someone didn't boost moral. But, assuming other companies DID take the advice, then we can do the yes/no below:

Yes: OK, so if we take the advice and others took the advice, that means we are doing the same thing. This helps the argument.

No: Well, if we don't then we are not doing what everyone else and we are not getting the benefit. No benefit = no lift = weakener.

B. Whether the employees of Eurystheus Company are residents of Mountain County.

Yes: OK, so everyone lives near each other. How does this strengthen or weaken? We would have to assume that the geography made everyone feel the same way. Wrong.

No: OK, so everyone lives elsewhere. Again, we are assuming geography has some effect on people's moods at work. Wrong.

C. Whether the ombuds hired has experience in other companies of Eurystheus Company’s size.

Yes: OK, so they've worked at a big/small company. Who cares? We have to assume that companies of different sizes are harder or easier to deal with, or have different challenges. While that is the case in real life, it isn't to be assumed on the GMAT. Wrong. 
No: Same issue.

D. Whether the CEO of Eurystheus Company is aware of the typical grievance of his employees.

Yes: OK, he is. But who cares? He is aware. What does this do to our argument? If we choose this, we need to assume that this effects who he hires, and that those hired are specialized in certain issues; and that is just to try and strengthen or weaken this thing. Wrong.

E. Whether some of the companies in Mountain County that now have an ombuds had significantly lower employee satisfaction ratings before they hired these ombuds. --  The one that trips most people up because they eliminate (A) and run through the rest. This is a tricky one, but the yes/no shows us why this is wrong.

Yes: Some of the companies did have lower employee ratings. But who cares? So maybe one company, or all of them, had lower ratings. Does this help our argument? The point is that we want to raise moral, just as everyone else did. This is just qualifying where a company started. In the end, this just reaffirms an improvement, which is already stated and thus doesn't help strengthen our argument. It also is giving reason. These companies hired the helpers to raise moral. But do we care WHY they were hired? Nope. We are told, universally, that moral went up which is all we care about; motive has no effect on the argument because our end goal is our end goal.

Mahammad2020 · Answer

The plan, in a nutshell, is for the Eurystheus Company to hire an ombuds to help employees who have grievances, so that employee satisfaction will quickly increase. The evidence that this plan will work is as follows:

*Other companies that have had an ombuds for at least a year report higher employee satisfaction.

*For the last 5 years, the Eurystheus Company has lacked an ombuds, and had lower employee satisfaction compared to the companies that have an ombuds.

A) Best answer because listening the complaints of employees, ombuds will propose plane to save the situation. If CEO listen to her advice he will implement her plan so satisfaction will increase
B)irrelevant
C) focuses on size of company, irrelevant
D)irrelevant
E) We do not know if in other companies prior to arrival of ombuds satisfaction was lower or not

I Stand for A

ravigupta2912 · Answer

E doesn't really evaluate the plan, which is to hire ombuds and increase employee satisfaction. We are concerned with evaluating the plan and not weaken the conclusion of the passage (which is what E is doing). If we have to evaluate the argument and the plan, we need a framework, where the extreme opposite outcomes in that framework will make / break our argument.

That is exactly what A does.

That is exactly what A does.

MBAB123 · Answer

I rejected A while thinking of corporate counsellors. Just talking and sharing with a counsellor could be enough to boost the morale of the employees. Similarly, just the presence of an ombud would have a big impact on the "immediate" rise in morale. Every employee would understand that grievance redressals take time. The top management/CEO wouldn't just switch things up a day after the Ombud discusses the issue with the employees. Since, we are discussing immediate rise in morale -Bringing in someone whose sole purpose and responsibility is to listen to your troubles and work towards it would surely boost the morale of the employees in the short run.

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

Both A And E seem to be sort of reasonable, but I sand for E more. 
Cuz in A: implement “ANY” of the recommendations of this ombuds, I think it is NOT necessarily to implement All advices of the ombuds, maybe employees’ satisfaction can significantly improve as long as CEO implement SOME of advices of the ombuds.

While in E: if those companies that now have an ombuds already had high employee satisfaction ratings before they hired ombuds, that means the ombuds might be useless and cannot improve employees’ satisfaction.

Anuuuuuu · Answer

Why can???t be the answer option E

ghani47 · Answer

I am confused with A. The CEO hired this ombuds because he wanted to improve the rating and to improve the rating he obviously know that he need to implement what the ombuds will suggest.

kunalgmat555 · Answer

Brother it might be the case that CEO is not even supposed to approve the ombuds' recommendation. What if some other person in the org is responsible for approving their recommendations?

glagad · Answer

That's great thinking. I will share my thoughts to answer your query.

In CR - try to stick to the stimulus as much as possible, unless you are given the liberty to doubt the reasoning, which will become apparent as you solve questions.
In the stimulus (/argument), you're given that CEO hired an ombuds, hence it can be safely assumed that CEO is the decision maker.

In Evaluate question, variance test (as quoted by e-gmat), is quite useful. Consider a yes/no to the Option Choices

Example -

Whether CEO of Eurystheus Company plans to implement any of the recommendations of this ombuds. -  YES -  Then, plan to increase emp satsifafaction. is likely to work

Whether CEO of Eurystheus Company plans to implement any of the recommendations of this ombuds. -  NO -  Then, plan to increase emp satisfaction might not work (E.g. Lets say that recommendation is to give 20% salary hike, but CEO doesnt approve)

In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to sup

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

In a corporate company, one role of an organizational ombuds is to sup

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards